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Northwestern Lehigh Tigers keep rolling with a shutout win at Tamaqua

Tagged under: District 11, Gameday Hub, News, pfn

| October 19, 2024

Another impressive showing by the Tigers Friday sets up in what should be a classic contest with rival Southern Lehigh for Colonial League championship.

TAMAQUA- Every head coach, or special teams coach, going forward into the rest of the regular season and into the post-season that has to face the freight train that is the Northwestern Lehigh Tigers is to reiterate is not to kick the ball to Eli Zimmerman. Zimmerman returned his fifth punt of the season for a touchdown and spurred the Tigers to their ninth straight win in a completely dominating performance with a 51-0 thrashing of the Blue Raiders of Tamaqua Friday night.

The Tigers defense has only given up 38 points all season and no one has scored more than 8 points in any game in 2024. The offense has scored 421 points and average nearly 47 points per game. Quarterback Shane Leh was a perfect 6-for-6 passing and threw for 198 yards with 4 touchdowns against a team that came into the contest with a 6-2 record.

Northwestern got off to a quick start in the opening twelve minutes by scoring 28 points and the home team were on their heels much of the night. Tamaqua received the opening kickoff, but went three-and-out and were forced to punt. Zimmerman took a hand off from Leh on the first play from scrimmage and scored from 68 yards but an illegal motion penalty nullified that. Leh, kept the ball on the next play and took it all the way down to the Tamaqua 20. He then connected with Mason Bollinger for the first score and a 7-0 lead with 10:05 left in the quarter.

The next Tamaqua possession again ended with a Blue Raider punt, but this time Zimmerman caught it at his own 25 yard line and proceeded to make his way down the sidelines for a 75 yard score to make it 13-0 as the two points conversion failed.

On Northwestern’s third possession of the game, Leh flipped out a wide receiver screen to Landen Matson, who deposited the rock into the end zone for a 67 yard score and a 21-0 lead after converting the two-point try with still 4:55 left in the quarter. With just 55 seconds left, Leh would hit Zimmerman out in the left flat and that went for a 28-0 lead as quarter came to an end.

At the 5:23 mark of the second quarter, Zimmerman would gouge the Tamaqua defense with a 38 yard burst into the end zone and with another two-point play made the score 36-0. That was followed up by Leh dropping a dime to Bollinger, as he caught the ball in stride and out-raced the defender for a 69 yard score and a insurmountable 43-0 lead with still 3:08 left before intermission.

“It was key to get off to a quick start for us tonight. This is a good Tamaqua team and we didn’t want them to get any confidence from the start.” Coach Josh Snyder said after the game. “Shane, Eli, Mason and Landen got the offense going in the first half and our defense did a great job keeping their offense in check.” He concluded.

With a running clock to start the second half the only score came after Tamaqua drove inside the Tiger’s ten yard line but a fumble the Northwestern pounced on at their own two. On the first play of the drive running back Evan Wagstaff went the distance 98 yards and a 51-0 lead with 1:19 left in the third quarter.

The win now sets up, what could be a classic showdown with rival Southern Lehigh Spartans next Friday in Center Valley. The Spartans come in with a 8-1 record and coming off an impressive 51-25 win over a good Saucon Valley team Friday night. Southern Lehigh’s only loss came in the second game of the season 32-20 to Blue Mountain, a team Northwestern defeated 31-8 on September 13th.

Southern Lehigh leads the District XI 4A power rankings while Northwestern, the number one ranked 3A school in the state by pafootballnews.com are the top seed in District XI.

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